


The Bar was Set

by childofautumn



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Art Enthusiast Nile Freeman, Artist Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Canon Compliant, Gen, Humor, M/M, Nile Freeman is So Done, POV Nile Freeman, Post-Canon, destruction of art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:21:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26554279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/childofautumn/pseuds/childofautumn
Summary: If you had asked Nile about immortals--before she became one… before she met them--she might have waxed poetic about the things one could learn from beings who had lived for so long - the languages, the art, the history!  The reality was a lot more disappointing.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 7
Kudos: 59





	The Bar was Set

**Author's Note:**

> It all started with Nile and the Rodin in the cave and Joe as an artist... and that mixed with my head canon that the historical errors in the source material (especially the comics) are in fact the result of faulty memories by the members of The Old Guard. Shake well, and this is what comes out.

If you had asked Nile about immortals--before she became one… before she met them--she might have waxed poetic about the things one could learn from beings who had lived for so long - the languages, the art, the history!

The reality was a lot more disappointing. 

The languages were fine, as each of the team was fluent in several. French she knew from school, which was just as well because they all seemed to avoid speaking in that language at the moment. Arabic she'd been learning herself before she'd died so she didn't have to worry as much about whether their version was up to date or not. Nicky and Joe definitely didn't speak modern Italian, though their version could pass. Unfortunately it was also quite clearly their love language, and Nile didn't want to learn too much lest she be scarred for her incredibly long life. They were romantic enough in English, and that wasn't a romantic language to start with. Unfortunately it was Andy who knew the most languages, and her method of teaching languages (like Russian) was just to use them and hope Nile figured out what things meant.

It might be problematic for talking to people in the street, but Nile was learning how to curse fluently in about a dozen languages and counting.

Art? Ha. Andy kept her fucking Rodin in a cave. _In a cave._ But worse than that was Joe - the artist of the group - the man who had shared materials with some of the great artists of history and thought nothing of it. Apparently, he'd bought some used canvases from "that Dutch guy who did the painting of the girl and the earring" and then he painted over them. Joe tried to say he wasn't that popular a painter, that canvas was expensive and Vermeer needed the money more than the canvases. Nile knew Vermeer only became popular centuries after his death, but that didn't change the fact that there were less than forty authenticated pieces of his and _Joe destroyed a Vermeer!_

No, there was no talking art with them.

The history... That had been the true, deep disappointment. Nile would've thought beings who had been alive for millennia would have incredible perspective. While Andy made clear early on she wasn't a storyteller and wasn't going to be, Nicky and Joe were happy to share stories. Sometimes they admitted that they'd been across the world and missed major events in other parts of the world, but they could still turn those into tales. One would start and the other would fill in, weaving tales of their experiences. It was great! Exactly what she wanted! 

Except Nile quickly realized that while they had been a part of many wars and conflicts, they had been in the thick of it - on the ground as it were. They didn't really have a sense of the big picture importance of certain battles - or even much memory of which battles they'd been in. It was understandable to confuse one crusade for another - that was centuries ago and they'd been part of more than one of them in the same cities over and over without a whole lot of change in basic fighting styles. 

Nile had expected better from recent history. 

The art should've been her warning.

Joe and Nicky were reasonably certain they'd been on the beaches of Normandy. But the next story they were part of the forces in North Africa at that time - they'd certainly spent part of that war on that front. The next story was about being part of some of the drops behind enemy lines into Germany. And they definitely remembered rescuing that kid - what was his name - Private Ryan?

Nile couldn't tell if they were just shitting her or being serious, but regardless it was quite clear they were all completely hopeless at history.

She'd hate them all if she didn't already love them so much. Still, Nile promised herself she was going to be a better immortal than the rest of them. At the very least she wasn't going to leave a Rodin in a fucking cave.

It was a low bar to set.


End file.
